Numerical and experimental study of wind tunnel method to determine the effect of pressure coefficient on storage tanks

Wind load is one of the influential lateral loads in the design of cylindrical storage tanks. In the static method, one of the parameters in calculating the wind force entering the structure, which depends on the geometry of the tank, is the pressure coefficient. Ways to find this coefficient are using wind tunnel tests or using numerical modeling in software based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Accurate estimation of these pressure coefficients in the whole surface of the tank is very important for calculating the buckling load and controlling other design criteria. In this paper, wind pressure coefficients on cylindrical storage tanks with height to diameter ratios of 0.25, 0.5, 1 and 1.5 using wind tunnel testing and numerical modeling based on computational fluid dynamics using ANSYS software have been obtained. Comparing the results of wind pressure coefficients, it is observed that with increasing the ratio of height to tank diameter, the maximum value of negative air pressure coefficient (suction) increases. The maximum negative pressure at ɵ= 90o was equal to 2.2 and the maximum positive pressure at ɵ= 0o (against wind) was 1. In this research, the equation governing wind pressure coefficients on the environment of storage cylindrical tanks is presented, which can be used in the design of storage tanks. The pressure coefficients on the storage tank made using corrugated sheets are also presented.